How & Why Should I Love God
Recently, I’ve watched this video about loving Allah. For one the topic of loving Allah is a very deep and spiritual journey that we should desire to undertake and go into deeper to discover intimately. However, the journey is fraught with a lot of doubts and questions and of course confusions. What does it take to love Allah unconditionally? To devote this life that he has blessed us with the aim of pleasing him?
Allah knows everything you do, that’s why you have to fill your heart with loving god. This of course may be confusing, difficult paths for some who still have yet to fully accept their roles as servants of Allah. Falling in love with his presence entails acceptance that you are solely living this life for him and the desire to love what he loves.
[quote]“When going to sleep or waking up you have to be in a very pure state where you would want to sell this whole world just to buy his pleasure for a moment or an atom of his love for a moment or just a second of his sight or a glimpse of his manifesting light.”[/quote]The above was quoted from the Ustaz and certainly draws on a pertinent point that in fact, every single aspect of our lives has to constantly tie into the act of pleasing Him. The desire for his pleasure and love is so great that nothing compares and that one would go to such great lengths just to attain it. After all, you have to glorify this god in order to love Him.
But how do you glorify Him? There are three points you should constantly remind yourself in order to love him.
- Remember that god never cut his blessings on you, blessings of both religion and life.
- Remember that he never exposed you in front of his creation.
- Count the number of diseases he has inflicted upon you.
When you reflect you may think that God never blessed you, but in fact you never thanked Him enough. Count your blessings my fellow Muslims, the list will never end. God never cuts the rope between you and Him.
So how can I remember Him in order to love Him?
If we noticed in the Qur’an, God is always ordering his servants to remember His Blessings upon them.
[box_dark]“O you who believe, remember the blessings of God upon you when a group desired to aggress against you, and He restrained their hands from you. And reverence God. And in God the believers should put their trust.” 5:11[/box_dark]
Keep on remembering Him because when you do this, you are glorifying God. When you do this, you are praising and loving Him and He will surely give you more. When He loves you, He will give you the opportunity to know Him. He will make you love Him more. You would love Him and miss Him and you will never do something that displeases Him.
When you remember God you should be shy, you should be ashamed because you should reflect and think about the countless number of times He forgave you. Every time you sin you say “Forgive me, this is the last time” and He still forgives you. Yet the shame doesn’t come so strong. Remembering his blessings will make you ashamed so that you will always thank Him. He doesn’t need anything from you, yet he still rewards you so how do you thank Him?
Having fear of God doesn’t mean living in anxiety or tension. It is a fear mixed with love. Probably when you are afraid of someone it means that you don’t love him except if that someone is God. Now this is a big pill to swallow, and is rather deep but it is rather simple if you realised that the love stems more from respect for God as you are aware of His power and afraid of what He can do unto you.
Yet He doesn’t. He tests you out of His love because after all, after each test, you become wiser and stronger.
Then arises an interesting question; “What do you do if you are afraid of Him? Then who do you run to?”
You run from Him, to Him.
So you would run from His Anger to His Mercy.
The Prophet (S) used to say, “I take refuge in your mercy from Your Anger and I take refuge in Your Forgiveness from Your Punishment and I take refuge in You from You.”
And the story of this du’a is narrated by Sayyidatina Aisha (RA). One day, the Prophet (S) was sleeping beside her and she woke up randomly at midnight but she didn’t find the Prophet beside her. She got afraid as there was no light but she looked closely and found him prostrating on the floor so she waited for him to finish.
She waited too long and he is still prostrating and she thought that maybe something bad had happened, so she poked his feet and he moved his feet a little bit so she knew he was alright. Then, she asked herself, “What is he saying to God?” so she got near him and heard him saying “I take refuge in Your Mercy from Your Anger, and I take refuge in Your Forgiveness from Your Punishment. I cant praise You better than You praised Yourself.”
This du’a is very pure; small words with very deep meanings.
May we all attain love of Allah, inshaAllah.
[divider]Adibah Mazeli
A sports junkie by heart, Adibah is adventurous and always has a thirst for knowledge. Challenges in life, to her, are simply blessings from Allah.